


Taylor the Ninth

by TransSatya



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow, The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: F/F, Gideon Nav has and will continue to have very strong opinions, I'll tag it with smugbug when it inevitably happens, Look Taylor is just gonna be trans forever, POV First Person, Trans Female Character, i don't make the rules, involuntary brain surgery, strong opinions on comphet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:48:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26202163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TransSatya/pseuds/TransSatya
Summary: The entities connect a girl's brain to a force they don't quite understand. A butch lesbian swordfighter ghost ends up being pulled along for the ride.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	Taylor the Ninth

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily modeled after the events of Snare 13.9. Trigger warnings for basically anything attached to Bonesaw apply.

So, real talk: what did I do that I keep getting stuck to girls with black hair and way too much ambition? I mean, I’m two for two so far, so I don’t actually know if it's a pattern yet, but fuck if you’re not a lot like her, Taylor. I’ll bet once you croak I’ll get shunted off to some other sad girl with black hair who’ll probably also be destined to burn herself to ash doing absurd bullshit.

Now’d be a good time for absurd bullshit, speaking of. Seriously, you’d think that we’d be used to some bitch singing about bones. You with your off brand Lyctorhood and me with my entire fucking life burried in bones. I guess being paralyzed on a folding table will make anything creepy.

Quit glancing at the boy in the fridge. God, knowing you, you’re probably shaking more from that then you are from the impending brain surgery. Probably blame yourself for it just as much as you blame the twelve year old serial killer. Maybe even more. It's a bad habit, you know, taking the entirety of everything on your shoulders. It will literally get you killed. Probably after it gets me killed. Again.

Oh hey, you’re throwing bone chips at her? Good, more of that. Oh. Guess your brain is too fucked up to make skeletons. “This is annoying,” she says. Well, guess what, bitch, your face is annoying!

...  
Okay fine, not my best burn but it isn’t like anyone can hear me. I’ve been stuck alone in your brain since that locker and can I just say for the millionth time, which still isn’t enough times, the fuck with that? Like, I get bullying, I grew up with a bully. I’d say we tore each other apart like you wouldn’t believe, except we never did anything to each other like those girls did to you. Like, even ignoring the symbolism of stuffing an XY girl into a locker full of tampons, its just really fucking gross.

Sorry, you probably don’t want to talk about that. Let's talk about other bullshit, like that can of bone melting juice she’s spraying on your bone chips. She’s acting like she’s so clever for having made exactly what she needs when really, if you weren’t such a badass bitch she’d have never bothered bringing that. I’m with you and everyone else on your team, fuck tinkers right in the ass.

I know you’ll think of something else. You never stop trying things, at least when you aren’t in that hellscape you called a school. Almost makes me glad that most of the other kids I was supposed to be around died, I’d have never lasted in a building with that many teenagers without going completely fucking mental. And unlike you I wouldn’t have gotten super powers from it.

Right, you hate thinking about that. Well, what about what you did to that last shithead whose ass you kicked? The one that looked like a white gimp suit with knives attached? He shows up like the murdery bitch that he is, probably expecting to scare the shit out of you or make you give up on being the good little queen that you are and you just go “Motherfucker!” and it was the coolest shit.

And like, you and him go at it, and sure, he’s got these big hammers just to fuck up your skeletons and a nozzle for bone melting juice in his chest. No idea why he decided he needed to look like he was spraying that shit out of his right nipple but whatever, fuck that guy. Anyway, you’re there, fucking exhausted, out of bone chips, out of skeletons, and hanging up from a rafter by your ankles so you can’t just pull more skeletons out of the ground. The mask you made out of your own bones is melting off your face. You're alone with only me freaking out in your head, well and truly fucked.

So of course you figure out how to eat the thanergy out of all the people he killed. Stupid motherfucker didn’t even realize how strong you were in that moment. I’m calling him stupid cause everyone knows that you don’t commit massacre near a necromancer you plan to kill. You’re basically just giving them a loaded gun to fuck you up with.

You ripped up his chains, you pounced on him and ripped him to fucking shreds. Took each part of his white, gimpy body and cracked them like so many eggs in the most badass possible omelette.

Oh hey, she’s talking about brains and the bullshit power system y'all have instead of necromancy. You know, this would be the funniest time to let me have control. I’ll just get up, kick her ass, and then tell her, ‘Hey, it's all space worms, your fucked up research is pointless because this idiot from another universe knows more about it then you ever will.’

I really wish I could be more helpful here. Also that she wasn’t able to make your mask come off with a spraycan. I really hope you still stick with the theme. You really made covering your skull with another skull work aesthetically and practically. Plus you and Brian match which’d be really cute except that he’s in the fridge right now and you...

Okay she keeps touching your forehead and I hate it and honestly, this situation is so much bullshit that I don’t blame you for not coming up with something. Trust me as a bitch who’s done this before, dying really isn’t that bad... but also if that's what we are gonna do then I gotta bitch about something.

You aren’t into Brian, not in the way you keep telling yourself you are. Don’t get me wrong, I can intellectually see the appeal but also this kind of shit, it really isn’t about intellect. It's about you having hangups and also your whole fucking society having hangups and its been the most weirdly frustrating shit to watch. You don't have to pick the nice boy just because he's a boy. That is all it is right? Fuck if I know why you actually do the things you do, I can’t see your thoughts or anything because that’d be weird. I can just follow your eyes and also your heartbeat. From where I’m sitting, you want the G and you want it bad.

Speaking of, when we’re in the afterlife together you have got to introduce me to Rachel. Girl has got so much style and I want a piece of that... God, I wish you could hear me. I mean I really wish I could help you. That I wasn’t failing another fucking kid. You deserve a whole lot better than to have to feel Ringlets saw into your skull. For what it's worth, and it's really not worth much, I’ll at least be here with you. I like to think you’ve known that this whole time, at least subconsciously. Makes me feel a lot less useless.

Sorry, I shouldn’t be such a downer, you’re the one with your brain exposed right now. For the sake of both our sanities I’m going to pretend she isn’t using wooden chopsticks to poke around in your head.

A black and blue stuffed dinosaur thing crashes in her. On the one hand, she’s over there now, on the other hand the motion hit that chopstick deep into your frontal lobe. Fuck.

“That’s really rude,” she says. “I was having a nice conversation with Styx, and you interrupt?”

“In what fucking universe was any of that a conversation, you literal tool?” I say to no one.

“Who’s there? Where are you?”

“Wait, you heard me? Holy shit, you heard me!” I can deal with a universe that insists on ignoring me but it's nice to be acknowledged. “Okay Taylor, I’m in your head. I promise you aren’t- well okay maybe you are a bit crazy but I’m real. I’ll explain later, when there isn’t some crazy girl playing doctor with your brain. I think I can get us out of this.”

“You could be a master effect, why should I trust you?” you say like the paranoid bitch that you are. Your mouth in meat-space doesn’t move, this conversation is only for me.

“Cause how the fuck could I make the situation worse? Your brains are naked right now!” The dinosaur thing is laying into Bonesaw, it has her cornered but we can both see it deflating. There’s this acrid smell, something is eating away at the fabric.

We both see Parian throw the remains of the construct off of her, her sleeve is disintegrating. I know I don’t need to say anything else. “What do I need to do?” you ask.

“You need to give me control of your body.” You tense up in the few remaining muscles you can control. “Necromancy is a thing you can just do with your spirit. The strongest Lyctors can just leave their bodies and do their work from the river. Their cavaliers take over the meat and keep it safe. I can do that for you.”

In your moment of hesitation, Parian starts talking. She isn’t a fighter and we both know it. “Fine,” you say. “How do I give you control?”

“You just need to trust me.” I’m partly bullshitting, you aren’t a real Lyctor, I’m not a necromancer and this whole situation is just absolutely fucking insane. “I get that's a lot to ask for right now but I need you out of the way to take control.”

Metaphorically speaking, it would be wrong to say you step aside for me. You jump, pushing yourself out of the way so quickly that you leave a vacuum behind you. I get sucked in.

I clench my-your-our fist. There is a wet slurping sound as the chopstick is forced right out of our head. Bonesaw stops short from her explanation of her latest atrocity. Something about plastic surgery? Neither of us were listening.

“You shouldn’t... you can’t... how are you moving? I paralyzed you completely! Why are your eyes gold?” Her shrill voice is somehow getting even shriller. Maybe if we keep doing awesome shit her vocal cords will snap from the strain.

I charge at her, you close the hole in our head. “Need a weapon!” I yell out loud in your voice. The little square of bone she had cut from your skull flies into our hand, lengthening as I put my hands around it. I swing a baton of bone at her. It doesn’t crush her ribs but it has to hurt like a bitch. A glob of liquid flies out of her mouth towards our eyes, I’m already stepping out of the way.

“Make it a sword, a two hander.” Somehow the fact that you nod comes through clearly on our mental connection. The batton extends further. The weight is all wrong but atleast you get the size and shape right. My other hand goes to the pommel of the sword. I smile, your mouth clearly isn’t used to doing that.

One of her weird mechanical spider things tries to jump at us, saws, syringes and blades attached to its legs. In one motion I bat it out of the air and slash at its master, cutting down her face and chest. The cut goes right down to her bones, which are covered in metal because she is such fucking bullshit. I manage to fuck up one of her eyes, the other stares at us with rage.

Needles fly past us. I risk glancing behind me and see that Parian’s got her arm extended. They dig into Bonesaw’s skin. With a twist of Parian’s hand, Bonesaw gets lifted into the air.

“You don’t get to win here, you know,” says her voice out of a speaker she has somewhere under her skin. It's distorted but probably clearer than what she could manage with her lips split apart like they are.

“Watch me, bitch,” I say back, ignoring the look Parian gives me.

Her jaw opens up. You process it before I do. A rib bone, Brian’s rib bone, blooms as it flies towards Bonesaw’s open mouth. You don’t turn it into a skeleton, instead you encase her mouth in solid bone and then grow your creation outwards.

It's like what you did to Lung but so much more precise. With me managing your body, you're free to make an airtight cocoon of bone. Her body is completely covered in moments. Parian realizes what you are doing. The remains of her construct and bits of her dress wrap around the cocoon. More needles and threads fly to sew the bits together.

“She’s trying to melt the bone,” you say from within our head. “I think for right now I can regrow it and keep her there.”

“Did we do it?” Parian asks, breathing deeply from some very legitimate exhaustion even as she dooms us all. The other shoe drops, Parian screams as her arm is cut clean at the wrists. She falls to her knees.

“No...” you say. I turn to see Jack Slash in all his goateed glory, a butcher’s cleaver in his hands. Burnscar is standing next to him.

He was frowning and even I could admit that was terrifying. “You are going to let her go,” he says in a voice that leaves no room for argument.

“Like fuck we are,” I say, arguing anyway.

He looks at me weird. I can tell he is looking at me specifically. “You aren’t Styx.”

I’m real fast but that's more distance than I can close before he guts us like a fish, even with how built your legs are. I’m not quite sure where the line is for what this body can survive. Whatever you might think, it's a pretty decent body and I don’t wanna test where its regeneration stops. My only chance is to avoid his next strike and charge.

“Well then, who are you? You don’t move like Regent or anyone else in this city that I know about. I can tell just by how you're standing, you really know how to use a blade. You aren’t a combat thinker, that’s years of training talking. More years then that schoolgirl you’re piloting would have ever had to learn.” He still isn’t swinging. The bastard knows that this happens at his pace and he’s enjoying it.

I can feel you tense up from the sudden awareness that he knows your face. I try reaching back out to you, try to mentally hold your hand and remind you that I am here. “Sure shithead, I’m my own bitch, so what?”

“I’m not quite sure. You all have been so much more entertaining then I would have ever expected. I never expected you’d take out Mannequin. Were you responsible for that?”

“Nah, that was Styx.”

He laughs and its the worst fucking sound. “I think since Cherish was never truly a member at heart, we’ll take her nomination slot and pass it over to Styx. Or you. Bonesaw will get enough time to dissect your brains and figure out where the line is. We don’t really need the rest.”

And then there was the fucking space worms again. Twisting in and out of each other and through reality in the void. You’re seeing them and I’m just getting a trace from the bits of our mind that are touching. Jack and Burnscar both have a glassy look in their eyes. They see it too. I rush forward.

Last time I saw them was when they connected themselves to you. I’ve had a long time to think about just what the fuck had happened. Near as I can tell, one of them connected you with the concept of thanery. Except I don’t think it understands just what that is. I’m not gonna pretend I do either, honestly, but even I know that fucking it up is how you get ghosts. Lucky for you, they pulled the best possible ghost out of the river and into your head. It was fucking wild from my perspective, getting shoved into your head by way of space worm.

The vision ends. It's slipping out of your head now, but not out of mine. I’ve had a feeling that that's what happens when y'all have these visions. Mostly 'cause you never mention this shit to each other.

Jack is in stabbing sword range. I’m swinging. There is a darkness coiling through us, Brian’s power. Jack starts stepping back, trying to bring his cleaver down on us. I get there first. You sharpen the blade as I cut right into the meat of his shoulder, and like that he is made partly armless.

The coil of darkness hits Burnscar. I see something I’ve only really seen in comics about the Cohort. The thalergy is pulled out of her, her life energy draining. She stumbles. Your muscles sing as thanergy pours into them. It's the signature trick of the Second House, empowering their cavaliers with the life force of their opponents.

Burnscar’s head rolls off her body and I’m already concentrating again on Jack. He’s trying to create distance for himself while reaching for something in his pockets.

Something funny about Jack, I’m pretty sure he fucks with your head whenever he’s around. It's subtle and I only noticed because I’ve been watching the inside of your head for as long as I have. He’s trying to do that now, little packets of information that ping you. Except that's not going to help him because I’m the one driving.

I push as hard as your muscles will allow, aiming between his ribs. He has no last words, he just makes an ugly wheezing sound as the air rushes out of his lungs and then he is dead.

“Fuck,” is apparently all that I can think to say. The darkness passes through me a second time and then through the cocoon of bone and cloth we’d left Bonesaw in.

Brian begins the process of remaking himself. Somehow he uses necromancy, the thalergy bloom from the two dead killers provide plenty of power for him to work with. You do not ask me to look away as his skin knits itself together and his bones regrow in his body.

The process takes only minutes. Bits of his old ribcage are still attached to the walls. From one of these Brian grows himself a skeletal construct. The skeleton supports him as he steps out of the fridge that had been his hell. He reaches out to touch us. I let him.

You’d closed our skull and stopped the blood flow to our forehead by closing the relevant capillaries. Now the skin regenerated, the damage to your brain undoing itself. The barrier that Bonesaw had thinned out between us regrowing. I feel a pull; this body is yours, after all, and it's only natural that your undamaged brain would want me back in my box.

This should terrify me, but it really doesn’t. So long as you know you’re not alone, I can live with whatever arrangement we have. You’re back in your body now. Darkness covers the whole room, and when it clears, Parian has her hand back and all the other people Bonesaw captured with you are awake. Lisa, Aisha and the Travelers.

The skeleton next to Brian crumbles. Your power is your own again. Lisa puts a hand on your shoulder and shakes her head. You understand immediately, because it's Lisa and of course you do. She goes to tell Aisha to help her brother, and you go to the prison that you made to contain the cause of this whole mess.

“Are you still there?” you ask silently, in the space of your own head.

“Yeah,” I say back. “You can reach out to me now?”

“I think I’ve felt you there for a long time, I just didn’t know what you were.” You still have the sword in your hand. The one covered in Jack’s blood and made of your own bone. You let the blade fall apart into bone chips and from those chips you form new skeletons to pick up Bonesaw in her airtight prison. “Thank you. We were...”

“Completely fucked?”

“Yeah, that... Do you have a name?” You suddenly sound embarrassed about not asking, like somehow it's rude to forget your manners when you’ve just had involuntary brain surgery.

“Gideon. Gideon Nav.”

“Sorry for not realizing you were stuck.” You’re following the tired procession out now. Out and away from this terrible room where so many shitty things happened.

“Taylor, that is by far the least important thing here. You have nothing to apologize to me for.” I’d say I’m sorry for snapping but I’m not. You stop for a moment. Lisa glances towards us before looking back at Brian. “We can deal with me later.”

“Okay... any advice?” It isn’t like you not to know what you want to do, but this is a fucked up night.

“Not really. Just, don’t leave him alone for right now I think? I’ll be here with you. Just make sure he knows he’s not alone and I’ll do the same for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I finished Harrow The Ninth and this rambly chapter forced itself into existence without my consent.


End file.
